EBRD scraps support for coal-fired power projects

• 10 years ago (2013-12-11)
• Junior Isles

Europe 1061 North America 998

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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is to scrap most of its assistance for coal-fired power generation, after a vote on a new investment strategy by the lender’s board.

EBRD is joining the World Bank and the US in rolling back its support for coal-fired generation, the most polluting fossil fuel.

The new coal financing strategy means funding of power plants burning coal will now only go ahead in “rare and exceptional circumstances,” according to Riccardo Puliti, Head of Energy and Natural Resources.

“We cannot use carbon without having a thought about what the impact of climate change is going to be,” Puliti said. “There is a climate-change problem, and there are actions to be undertaken in order to solve it.”

The EBRD currently operates in 34 countries across eastern Europe and central Asia and has invested €52 billion ($71 billion) in sustainable industry, infrastructure and energy since 2006, including €6.3 billion in power generation and utilities.

The bank has invested €12 billion in renewable power and energy efficiency since 2006, placing itself as the region’s biggest investor in these green technologies.

The coal decision is part of a wider investment strategy from the EBRD, with Puliti claiming that energy efficiency is the “main axis” linking the new policies together.

New policies include replacing fossil fuels with renewables, reducing emissions from thermal generation plants, insulating buildings and making trains and trucks less fuel-intensive.

Movements by development banks like the EBRD to end coal funding also impacts on private financing for the fuel.,Climate policy director Jake Schmidt at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “If these development banks show that they aren’t interested, then those projects have a much harder hurdle with the private capital market… If they don’t fund coal projects, and these projects don’t get funding elsewhere, then the carbon pollution from these projects won’t occur.”